The trial of Josef Fritzl may have ended, but for his daughter, Elisabeth, and their six surviving children, the ordeal is far from over. The family, who are believed to have new identities and to have been living in a safe house in an Austrian village, will now try to rebuild their lives as best they can.

Psychologists experienced in helping the victims of hostage taking, sexual abuse and prolonged isolation say that great care will need to be used in trying to bring some normality to the lives of Elisabeth Fritzl and her children, who are thought to have returned during the trial to a clinic where they received care following the discovery in April of Fritzl's crimes.

Lesley Perman-Kerr, who is in private practice in St Albans, Hertfordshire, said the three children who were sent by Fritzl to live upstairs with his wife, Rosemarie, were likely to feel "survivor guilt". "They were the ones who got out." They would also have to come to terms with the fact their grandfather was also their father,

As for Elisabeth and all the children, "it is quite common for people who have been in this situation – and obviously it is a very extreme situation – to be very worried and very concerned they may have inherited the traits and be like that person," said Perman-Kerr. "You have to help them see themselves as apart from this individual. They have a different kind of qualities and understandings. Their ability to identify what he has done as monstrous means they have a different level of self-awareness and a certain kind of values which may well become a safeguard for them. It is a starting point for them to help build up their self-esteem and help them move away from this fear."

Perman-Kerr did not believe Elisabeth would ever recover completely from her ordeal and the trial must have been "extremely traumatic" for the children, too.

"It will be bringing things up to the surface again," she said, adding that they might all always feel imprisoned in a different way. The fact they had been given new identities meant "everything they encounter from now on is, in a sense, going to be a lie. They may never wish to reveal who they are."

Ian Stephen, who is in private practice in Scotland, said Elisabeth's children who had remained with her had grown up with a mother who must have been compromised by her own experience of adolescence. Apart from her father, there did not seem to have been any adult male involved in the family in the cellar throughout their lives.

"The whole process they have been in is one where reality has been totally distorted. You should have been safe and protected but [the environment] has been hostile and damaging. It is quite a shock to discover what you were going through was not normality."

People he had treated after being abused "feel very bitter, very angry. The perpetrator is very often a person of extreme hatred and dislike for them." Such people had been "excluded from any other kind of information" by someone who was controlling and autocratic.

James Thompson, of University College London, and a co-director of the UK Trauma Centre, said previous information on those who had suffered long-term imprisonment and/or sexual torture such as Elisabeth and her children suggested the chances of permanent problems were in "the high 70 per cents". He said : "People are incredibly resilient. It doesn't mean they will be incapable of living life but any relatively sensitive psychiatric or psychological assessment will show much higher levels of distress, more disorders, more dismay for the rest of their lives."

Most people who had not undergone such experiences may have 'downs', too, but would recover relatively quickly. "We have social networks. We can make plans. We have ambitions of one sort or another. We produce things. In behavioural terms we move about. We do go outside the house. We do explore and we go on journeys. We have natural curiosity. What we are talking about here may mean that they might be reasonably housebound, restricted in what they can do and have difficulty in making decisions."